Seen today

[JJ]

Two cock pheasants fighting, and a jay seeing off a magpie.  The magpie thought he'd gone far enough, and settled down, so the jay came back for second helpings and made REALLY sure!

[Pingu]

Moorhen chicks:


IMG_3199 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[delthebike]

Two swallows, welcome to summer!

[Bledlow]

We've had swifts screaming overhead for a while now.

Saw a swarm of bees yesterday, on the allotment. One bloke left, having a problem with bee stings & anaphylactc shock. Someone else went to phone a person who would be interested in catching the swarm.

[Pingu]

Swifts and dolphins.

[Auntie Helen]

My landlord is a beekeeper (honey is available - 'cept I don't like it). Today whilst I was out on walkies some of his bees swarmed to a tree across the road



Somehow the top swarm looks like the playboy bunny logo!

On the walk I watched this hare run across a field, then stop and clean his face (between the bars of the gate)



And then he headed off.

[SteveC]

Bitterns! 
And more importantly we heard them booming. We've seen them before but never at the right time of year for the song.
It really is like someone blowing across the top of a really big milk bottle, maybe a demijohn.
(We were at the Ham Wall RSPB and Shapwick Heath Natural England^* nature reserves on the Somerset levels.
Saw lots of other good stuff as well, but that was the prize.

*: or is it English Nature this week?

[fuzzy]

Dolphins (or Porpoises) and Pelicans in the entrance to San Francisco Bay as SWMBO and I walked across Golde Gate Bridge

[CountrySickness]

A male Blackcap flew into my front wheel and was half shredded as a result despite being a wimp about such things I did manage to put the poor blighter out of its pain. I do notice a disproportionate number of dead Blackcaps by the sides of roads.

On a more positive note, I also saw my first Hobby for 2 years later in the ride, some fine views as it circled trees and the river close-by

[Ruth]

A bunny. 

The nice thing about my quiet Shimano freewheel is not scaring off the wildlife from half a mile away.  Which was kinda the point, really.

[Pingu]

In SW Scotland: a stoat, a red kite, 'wild' goats and a PINE MARTEN. The first time I've seen a pine marten in Scotland and in broad freakin' daylight 

[Bledlow]

Pot the frog now has a companion (named Notpot), & a small toad has also moved in. Our allotment pond & its environs are now home to three anurans. Mrs B likes to sit & watch them sometimes, e.g. early this evening. But they don't do much, apart from eating the odd insect.

[red marley]

A Kingfisher flying up the River Lea in the Olympic Park. The place is looking really good at the moment with meadow flowers everywhere. I don't know if there were ever Kingfishers at Stratford before the Olympic redevelopment, but it feels like they've done a really good job with the riverside environment.

[Wowbagger]

A male Blackcap flew into my front wheel and was half shredded as a result despite being a wimp about such things I did manage to put the poor blighter out of its pain. I do notice a disproportionate number of dead Blackcaps by the sides of roads.

On a more positive note, I also saw my first Hobby for 2 years later in the ride, some fine views as it circled trees and the river close-by

A male chaffinch once did that into my brother's front wheel. he had an idea that it was attacking his spoke reflectors. Did you have reflectors fitted perchance?

[Wombat]

In SW Scotland: a stoat, a red kite, 'wild' goats and a PINE MARTEN. The first time I've seen a pine marten in Scotland and in broad freakin' daylight 

Ooh, that is a good'un!  I have seen one in the  Picos de Europa in Spain, we were just having our evening constitutional walk up from our holiday apartment, and Mrs W said "what that in the road behind us?" and lo and behold, a pine marten standing up on his back legs, effectively saying "Hey, look, I'm a pine marten, wanna take a picture?"

We spent this weekend at Fawley Hill, the McAlpine's place near Henley on Thames.  it was nice to see the cuddly alpacas, and see the camels and tapirs, but after the event had a flying display by a spitfire, we were all treated to a far better display by a pair of red kites, who were not exactly shy, and were swooping down and grabbing things off the ground.  Sadly I was travelling as light as possible, photographically, and only had my 17-70 lens. I hasten to add that the red kites were not staged, they were just the local bird population.  We do see them near home, but they aren't usually as brazen as these were.

[Snakehips]

Female Mallard with 13 young at Teddington Lock.
Female Mandarin with 3 young in Isabella Plantation, Richmond Park.
Female Egyptian Goose with 7 young in Isabella Plantation.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Two kestrels, kestrelling about outside the office.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

One crow, eating a crisp.

[Ruth]

Lots of baby bunnies.  Soooo cute.

Yellowhammers.  Finches.  Pigeons.  Crows.  Gulls.

Bugloss.  That pink stuff I can never remember the name of.  Rosebay willowherb.  Mallow.  Loads of umbellifers - including some hogweed.  Elderflowers.  Horse chestnuts in glorious flower, both red and white.  Bluebells.  Ragwort.  Campion.  Buttercups.  Red clover.

Gorgeous English spring evening.

[Basil]

I'm pretty sure there's a nightingale in a tree in front of the Country Girl.
For a week or so I've been thinking, "Blimey, that blackbird is being pretty tunefull"
I had my suspicions, but only tonight checked the song on the RSPB site.
Wow!  I do think it may be.

[Wowbagger]

I'm pretty sure there's a nightingale in a tree in front of the Country Girl.
For a week or so I've been thinking, "Blimey, that blackbird is being pretty tunefull"
I had my suspicions, but only tonight checked the song on the RSPB site.
Wow!  I do think it may be.

That's pretty remarkable if it is, Basil. They don't normally venture north of the Home Counties in the UK, although there were quite a few in Denmark, and loads in the dunes between the Hook of Holland and The Hague when we were there last year.. Could be climate change I suppose.

Any chance of a recording?

[Basil]

Unfortunately, I don't know how to do a sound recording on a nexus.  I did make a video of a paving slab last week with said bird as the soundtrack, but found that the resulting file was too big to email to my Photobucket account.
I deleted the file some days ago as I thought I was just being silly and it was probably just an exuberant blackbird.  But now I'm not so sure.

I could be making a fool of my self,  I'm not sure.  Nightingales do get as far northwest as Warwickshire, Worcestershire probably not.  South urban Brum, well, I agree, it would be remarkable.

[Basil]

*Embarrassed*
It's a blackbird.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Blackbirds are good mimics. Maybe it's mimicking a nightingale.

[Wowbagger]

A couple of times this year I have heard song thrushes to which I have had to listen very carefully before I was sure they weren't nightingales. I haven't heard a nightingale this year.